In 2017, the BBC or the British Broadcasting Corporation put in place strict restrictions for those that are attempting to BBC iPlayer outside the UK. They have instituted strict licensing restrictions, including having a UK postal code and a license.

This has made things much harder for anyone living outside the UK and trying to connect to the UK iPlayer from countries abroad. You now need to have a valid UK IP address to access BBC iPlayer in the USA and other countries around the world.

These new restrictions could be the reason that users are finding that the VPN BBC iPlayer is not working and wondering how can you access BBC iPlayer abroad and restrictions or blocking.

VPNs or Virtual Private Networks send your connection through servers which are usually located in a different country or region than where the user is trying to gain access to an iPlayer stream or other content. When you connect online through a VPN server, it changes the IP address to match the location of wherever the server may be located.

Many users have turned to using a BBC iPlayer blocking VPN however, the BBC has been trying to block these efforts as well leaving you without the capability to watch BBC iPlayer abroad through a VPN connection.

In cases where the BBC can detect enough traffic coming through the same stream and they suspect that it may be run by a VPN service provider then they have been acting to blacklist these servers.

To avoid this type of blocking, you need to choose a VPN provider that is able to quickly switch to a new VPN server as soon as ones that are blacklisted become restricted. Once you are connected you should be able to continue with no further issues.

The BBC IPlayer VPN Block Workaround

Even if your VPN has adequate amount of servers to allow you to watch BBC abroad, you will still have to occasionally shuffle through different locations to find on not blacklisted. Another tactic to attempt to watch BBC iPlayer abroad is to purchase a dedicated IP address located in the UK.

It is imperative to use a VPN service provider that has a server located in the United Kingdom, and secondly it needs to be able to handle a large bandwidth. We have tried a couple of different providers and the one that worked the best and the most consistently was HideMyAss Pro.

How to use VPN to watch BBC iPlayer

Sign up with a reliable VPN service provider with servers located in the UK.